Book 8: The Protectors
by furnTimeWithAggie
Summary: My take on the wacky hi-jinks our little bird/kid friends will get into in Book 8.  My first fan-fic, so read and HOPEFULLY enjoy.  Flames are welcome.  Rated T for mild language and violence.


**1**

Pain. Unimaginable, soul-crushing pain. That is the most eloquent way I can describe losing someone you love. The sheer loss engulfs you and won't let you go, worming dark tentacles into every crevice of your mind and memory.

As someone who has dropped into the very depths of hell and come out sound and sane, I've always credited myself as being somewhat resilient. I mean if I could deal with a childhood of living nightmares and still have a bit of wit in me, I could deal with just about anything. Right?

Wrong.

Two weeks ago I had lost my baby, my _angel._ And it hurt me. No- not hurt- destroyed me.

Angel, the youngest of my band of merry mutants, had courageously dove into the tunnels below the city of lights to attempt to disarm what could only be described as the worlds entire supply of C4 explosives.

Courageously, I ask myself. Was she truly being courageous or did I force her hand? Wasn't it all thanks to me that she was down there, a seven-year old _child_, fighting the evils of the world.

A beady tear ran down my flushed cheek. It wasn't the first. It certainly wouldn't be the last.

It took the Flock and I one night in Paris after "the incident" before we had to leave. After what happened, it was impossible to sleep in a bed. Impossible to enjoy the simple luxuries of life. Impossible to be around the countless faces whose lives went on. Impossible to allow someone to go unpunished when my baby was gone.

So how did we solve all these impossibilities? We went old school. Flew into the countryside of France and slept in trees the way we used to before…_everything_.

I stood up on the withered branch that supported my emotion-ridden body. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over the forest floor. With exaggerated force I snapped out my speckled wings.

It was late and my Flock would worry if I stayed out too late. The fact that I could leave them for the most fleeting moment of solitude sent shivers down my spine. I was forgetting my responsibilities in my grief.

I leapt out from my barky companion and allowed the wind to catch beneath my feathers. With three powerful beats I was airborne, far above the forest canopy. I hunched my shoulders and forgot about the beat of my wings, sending myself forward at speeds exceeding 250 miles per hour.

I felt a heat, a heat deep in my chest, a wild and crazed heat. It was as though a feral animal had raised its hideous head within me. In that moment a deep freeze had lifted, my heart, incased in the ice of my despair, was beating again- returning a flow of anger to the rest of my body.

I was back. I was Maximum Ride. And I was ready to kill; I was ready to rip the throat out of all those responsible for ending Angel's life, and _anyone_ who got in my way.

**2**

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since Fang left Angel in the sewers of France. Two weeks since Fang had allowed his youngest sister to die. He'd left her. Above all, he was responsible. That was something he couldn't escape. But, before he came to terms with his own guilt there was something he had to do: make those who were responsible for the Paris incident pay!

So what did he do? He and his weary warriors packed up and headed to Germany, hunting out the head of the DG. Now, they stood in a hallway, a hundred or so feet below ground looking for answers; anything that might lead them to the head of the serpent.

"Almost got it," Ratchet whispered in the dark.

"Like you almost had it two minutes ago," Star whispered back, arms folded across her chest. It didn't have the effect that Max could have with the same gesture.

Fang shook his head, hardly the time to be thinking about _her_.

Ratchet snapped his head toward the needle thin blond. He removed the tools he had lodged in the keyhole trying to pick the lock and motioned toward the door. "Go 'head blondy. Let's see you open it."

Fang rubbed his temples as a headache began to ebb at his patience.

Star sucked in a breath of air, ready to pound Ratchet's super sensitive eardrums with all the vindictive remarks she could think up. Just then a petite foot came crashing down on the door, unhinging it from its frame and sending it hurtling into the swirling black beyond.

Kate took a step back, a pleased smile on her face. "Ladies first," she said ushering with her hands for Ratchet and Star to go in.

Fang thought he heard Ratchet mumble how he could've gotten it open, but he stepped past the splintered doorframe anyway. Fang liked Kate's no-bull attitude, it reminded him of- well he liked the no-bull attitude. He took a quick sweep of the hall they had been in and followed the rest of his Gang.

Massive computers dominated the room he entered, going from floor to ceiling. "Star, Kate, and Ratchet, take watch outside. Make sure they don't rip each other's heads off," Fang added in a hushed tone to Kate. She smirked and bounded out of the room.

Fang, Maya, and Holden made their way to the center of the room where a computer screen played through a slideshow of pictures. Fang assumed they were pictures of what the DG thought the world would look like post-humanity. Puppies, rainbows, yada-yada.

Holden took a seat in front of the computer and cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "Showtime," he muttered to no one in particular. Holden was no Nudge when it came to computers, but considering the kid hadn't included hacking in his "resume," Fang couldn't complain.

The seemingly prepubescent kid worked fast, scrolling through matrix-like pages of text and zipping past passworded files. "Gotcha," Holden said as document after document filled the screen.

Fang removed a USB from his pocket and handed it to the computer whiz.

**Downloading 1 of 1064 files, ETA 2 minutes 13 seconds.**

Suddenly Fang was struck with a sense of urgency. Maybe it was being raised on the principle of paranoia, but this all seemed far too easy. A door with a pickable lock, a computer with a lackluster security system. It all seemed-

"Seen enough bird freak," came a smooth, deep voice from behind.

Fang whipped his head around just in time for a knuckled hello.


End file.
